The 40s Are About Assessment
Theme of the Week: Questions You'll Face
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: Your life is like the morning fog (James 4:14). Bonus Reading: Jeremiah 17:7-8
New questions pop up. The complexities of life accelerate, but I'm grown up. I can no longer fob off my flaws and failures as youthfulness and inexperience. Why are some people doing better than me? Why am I disappointed in myself? Why are limitations starting to outnumber options?
Forty-somethings may ask, Why do I face so many uncertainties? Bodies change; children become more independent, even begin to leave home. Marriages must be re-adjusted to face new realities. Some begin to enjoy financial leverage; others assume they'll never be materially secure. Some give up the fight to achieve lifelong goals and settle into a defensive posture. Others, missing the excitement of their youth, try to retrieve earlier pleasures.
But a few wise ones step back and strip their lives down to bare metal. They take a hard look at their spiritual journeys, personal relationships, convictions about money and possessions, and how they invest their energies and resources. How can I make a greater contribution to my generation? they ask. Or, what would it take to do the thing I've always wanted to do? Then they plot a whole new course for their second half.
—Gordon MacDonald in A Resilient Life
My Response: Have I retained my earlier life goals? How have I adjusted them?
Thought to Apply: To be interested in the changing seasons is, in this middling zone, a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.—GEORGE SANTAYANA (Spanish-American philosopher)
Adapted from A Resilient Life: You Can Move Ahead No Matter What (Nelson Books, 2004) by permission.
Copyright © 2005 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity. 1 of 1
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Lord, You've promised to guide me throughout life. As my questions change, help me to keep turning to You for solid answers.
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